The Foreign Ministry has changed its travel recommendations to 28 Muslim countries in light of Denmark’s military campaign against Isis in northern Iraq.

 

While the Foreign Ministry's citizen services department (Borgerservice) is not explicitly telling Danes to avoid travelling to the countries, it warns Danish travellers to use caution in the Muslim countries. Among the advice is to be aware of risky situations, and to avoid being either the only foreigner in a particular area or spending a lot of time in areas that have a high concentration of Westerners, such as airports. 

 

Borgerservice spokesman Ole Egberg Mikkelsen told Politiken that the sharpened travel guidelines are due both to Denmark’s participation in the coalition fighting Isis and the general security risks in the affected countries.

 

“This affects Muslim countries or countries with large Muslim populations. We are doing this because we have seen beheadings in some of the countries and we want to make people aware that that if they choose to travel there, there could be a specific terror risk and a focus on Danes,” Mikkelsen said. 

 

Mikkelsen said that although it is rare that Borgerservice changes its travel guidelines for so many countries at once, it has happened before. 

 

The affected countries are: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.